Tips for Working on It When Your Marriage Isn’t Working From a Divorcee
Get help early. Don’t wait until you’re drowning. I once heard the analogy of utilizing a personal trainer to learn a gym routine. If you’ve never exercised, you wouldn’t walk into a gym thinking you’d be an expert, not need any training, and be able to adeptly figure it out as you go, right? But with marriage or even long term relationships, we don’t encourage getting help and guidance early on. Instead, couples wait an average of 6 years into unhappiness before seeking help.
I want you to search your feelings (like a Jedi) for a moment and think which would be an easier fix if you’re stuck on the level of a game. Option 1: Struggling with the issue for a few minutes and then finding a YouTube tutorial or cheat codes online, thus solving the problem. Option 2: Struggling for months, getting really fed up and frustrated with the game, and potentially giving up on ever solving it. Option 1 sounds a lot better, right? Guidance, solutions, early help. But when we think of utilizing this in reference to early counseling or prophylactic couples therapy…crickets!
One of my biggest regrets in entering marriage was not doing premarital counseling or precana. We didn’t have a religious ceremony, but I wish we had done some of the hard work early on, as the foundation our marriage had been built up on would have surely been a different structure.
Remember to keep doors and windows in your marriage. When you’re spicy, resentful, or unsure, it can feel very natural to want to vent or seek the advice of a close family member or bestie. But this is not best in a romantic coupling conflict. I love the analogy John Gottman utilizes about a couple’s privacy. A relationship can have doors and windows. The two people in the relationship can utilize the doors for coming in and out with feelings, thoughts and emotions. They’re in the relationship house with boundary approved access to each other. Everyone else is on the outside. Everyone. Parents. Kids. Besties. Everyone. Their access to your relationship is only through the windows. This boundary can be really hard, especially when families are very close, but it’s an important one.
As good and innocent as it can feel to whine to your mom about your partner’s inability to find the laundry basket, the damage this causes far outweighs the relief of gossiping about your sloppy partner. Your best friend should not be consulted when you’re in a fight with your partner unless you partner has given you permission to share this disagreement. And think about this – what good is really going to do? If you’re beefing with your spouse, no matter what your bestie says, the only people solving the problem are you and your partner…not everyone else.
Another question to ask yourself when you’re in relationship distress is the following:”Is my relationship worth this?” If you’re fighting on a regular basis or having the same disagreement that just won’t end, it can be easy to think things like,
“I’m not giving it, I am always the one to compromise.”
“I don’t like the way my partner brought this up, and I’m going to make this hard for them.”
“They deserve my attitude because they did XYZ.”
There’s that saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” You may be so focused on winning the battle, that you’re losing the overall war. And hey, when did your relationship become battles and wars to win anyway?!
I read a book about marriage once – and I’ve read many, so I’m so sorry I don’t have the specific reference – but I loved this message. When you start to dig your heels in or get really caught up on something, stop yourself and think, “Is ending my relationship worth this?” I know for myself, 95% of the things were not. My marriage wasn’t worth breaking up over undone dishes, laundry that missed the basket, toilet paper rolls left empty, or trash days missed. Knowing that and having that check in made it easier for me to plan a soft start up (credit to John Gottman on this) and try to constructively solve the problem versus setting my relationship on fire over another sinkful of dirty dishes.
Make sure to educate yourself on love languages if you’re a human who interacts with humans, not just if you’re in a relationship. Everyone has different love languages, and you’ll do better in life knowing, respecting, and interacting that way. One of the BIGGEST things I see when couples struggle is that they try to love harder in the love language they prefer, not their partner’s love language.
Example: my love language is physical touch. If I’m trying to connect harder with a partner in my own love language, that means more hand holding, more snuggling, more hugging, and maybe more attempts at initiation of intimacy. And if my partner’s love language is the same, that may work out for me. But if my partner prefers something like words of affirmation or gifts, and I’m just smothering them with my body, they’re not only not going to feel loved, they’re likely to feel annoyed AF at me. They may even become resentful because they feel like I’m trying to use them, or being selfish because I’m only fulfilling what I want.
See where I went there? If my kid needs physical touch and some words of affirmation to feel special, and I give her a toy, she’s not going to feel great about it. If someone needs quality time spent with them, and their partner spends the day cleaning the yard as an act of service, that’s going to be a disaster. Make sure the efforts you are so kindly making are hitting the target and filling the emotional bucket you want them to.
My next bit of advice is that if you can’t repair things, don’t get married! I’m not joking. If you and your partner can’t repair things when your relationship isn’t rainbows and sunshine, do not lock that down until you learn that skill. It rarely comes on its own. It comes with intention and work. And the bad part of unrepaired conflicts is that they build up into some spooky ghosts that tend to pop up in subsequent kerfuffles.
What is a repair? You tell me you don’t like my new haircut. You like my hair longer and my new short do with bangs aren’t doing it for you. That hurts my feelings a lot, and I’m mad at you. A healthy couple capable of repairs can move forward with a simple, “What’s done is done and it’s hair that will grow back.” An unhealthy couple will have conflict come up with every future haircut or contemplation of hair changes. Seems silly, but something as superfluous as hair styles could unravel a long term relationship without this skill.
Two thirds of conflicts between people in relationships are unresolvable. This means all relationships will have things that need to be repaired on a regular basis. There will be snapping while hangry. There will be in-laws. There will be financial struggles or choices. There will likely be a conversation about growing your family with pets or kids and whether you want to or don’t. There will be missed bids (we’ll talk about this below). There will be sickness, messes, and unpleasant surprises that will test you and your partner’s ability to repair things. You need this skill.
Y’all may be noticing I refer to John Gottman and the Gottman Institute a lot and that’s because their work is researched based over many years, and it’s easy to implement. One of the seven principles to making long term relationships work is having a “greater good” or common goals. This is personalized based on the couple. It may be that your goal is to move to Costa Rica, be active members of your church, retire to Disney, or have a barndominium full of rescued cats. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s something you both want to have in life and brings meaning, joy, and fulfillment. Keep in mind, this can totally change with time, but that you both must be willing to grow or change the vision.
I briefly mentioned bids above. What is a bid? It’s an attempt that one partner makes to engage another partner. It’s something as simple as sending a TikTok video that you thought your partner might like. It’s a kid saying, “Look what I can do.” It’s one partner saying, “Huh,” as they stare at something fascinating.
We have a few options when we’re presented with a bid. We can ignore it, we can turn away from it, or we can turn towards it. Couples who turn towards the majority of bids are the ones who last longer and are happier. Turning towards may come naturally, but it also may take intention and work.
What would this look like in practice?
*Reacting or commenting on message of the IG reels/TikTok your partner sent or sending back one in return.
*Stopping what you’re doing and actively paying attention to your child, and maybe positively commenting on the skill.
*Searching for what got your partner’s attention, and working to understand why it sparked their interest with your knowledge of your partner, questions, or your own research.
Turning towards each other more often than you ignore or negatively respond is a Hallmark of making your relationship stay positive and healthy. In a world where we’re on screens a lot and we’re multitasking constantly, this can be something we have to put effort into, but the payoff is great. Accepting bids, engaging in your partner’s attempts to engage you, helps reinforce that you pick each other day in and day out.
Most happy couples have a ratio of five positive interactions to one negative. One of the easiest ways to rescue a faltering relationship is to increase that ratio. Use all your skills: loving in your partner’s love language, engaging bids in a positive way, and showing up in a way that shows you’re choosing your relationship over your ego, pride, or the ability to continue on autopilot.
Let me be honest. I would not wish relationship unrest on my worst enemy. Despite close to a decade of hard work, my marriage wasn’t able to be transformed into something that could grow peacefully and in a healthy manner. The one question that haunted me was when a counselor or therapist would ask, “Where do you see yourselves in X amount of years?”
Where did I see myself? Having the same arguments. Jumping through the same hoops to yield minimal forward movement. Having there be more work, negativity, and resentment than joy, peace, and love. I saw us co-parenting and cohabitating just as we had always done, but continuing to lose our connection because of our individual differences, love languages, and past traumas.
We want to be careful with this question. If you’re anxiety prone like me, it’s easy to write a terrible tale of woe. We want to think of the best case scenario, worst case, and a middle of the road scenario. You need to use interactions from the past and present when you’re working on things, and you need to have realistic expectations on where you and your partner can grow. Some people hear this question and can envision a relationship full of peace and ease once they’re out of the season of tiny human raising. Some people hear this question and see this season of distress as a small portion of a larger love story. Others start to realize that the amount of good days to bad starts to become a lot more bad years to only a few good days.
There is that motivational quote on the Internet that says something like, “Marriage is hard, divorce is hard, choose your hard.” This couldn’t be more true.
Still not sure where to start? There are a few approaches.
- Don’t wait until it’s too late. The first step to solving a problem is admitting there is one. It doesn’t mean your relationship is doomed, or that you’re bad people or anything terrible. It just means you looking for training on doing better!
- Find a therapist. I think there is such value in having individual therapists for each partner, as well as a therapist working with the couple. We all have things we’re working through and on. We all come into serious relationships with previous baggage. We’ve all experienced different traumas throughout our growth. Some partners may be resistant to doing couples counseling, and so in that case, one person can start doing their own work to show up as the best version of themselves.
- Read some books. I remember the librarian asking me if I was a couples counselor one visit when I checked out 10 self help marriage books. Nope. Just a postpartum mom trying to connect with my partner and find a better way to peacefully interact. Trying to learn realistic expectations. Trying to read where couples typically struggle to not feel alone and lost. Some of my favorites:
- Do a workshop. Different counselors and influencers resonate with different people. We’re all naturally egocentric, and it always cracks me up to listen to someone’s preferred podcast or music because it reminds me that not everybody listens to the same things that I do. Find a person who feels right for you and take your partner to a conference for connection. Do a church retreat. Find a local couples connection activity. Start with a small guide like this one.
- Small things often. People think that big, outrageous, expensive gestures are the only thing that can fix a failing relationship. The truth is, if you’re struggling together, It likely isn’t going to get better with a fancy vacation or trip. The vacation fatigue and travel uncertainty may even make it worse. Instead of thinking that you have to wait for a big thing, focus on small things often. Look for ways to be kind and cherish your partner. Show up everyday despite it being hard or not. Look for the positives and gently grow them. Hold hands. Snuggle. Find the good in each other.
Wishing you the best of luck if you’re struggling. Know you’re not alone, most couples have periods of struggle, and many can find their way to resolution. If you read this and think, “Hey, we’re doing pretty good,” I’m so happy for you!
Perfectly Yours,
Mora
